Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Light Bulb! aka Realizing the Obvious

Ugh I'm so stupid sometimes. I've been looking for something to write about (not just on this blog but as a topic to focus on in order to improve my writing) and also for an area of interest to explore in terms of career potential. I've been super distressed about not being able to figure something out.

Ding! Hello, Kelly. You work in a restaurant, you're dating a culinary manager, you love grocery shopping, the highlight of your days off is cooking, you watch food related TV shows, you search the internet for recipes for fun, and you (semi-recently) read a book about food and history that left you giddy.

Write about food, silly girl.

Now I just need to tell myself that all it takes is passion. Because I'm far from the expert on food. I'm definitely a cook-in-training who ends up eating some botched recipes (ideas for cooking always sound better in my head....). And I'm definitely not rich enough to eat at super fancy restaurants all the time to do research on foods. I've thought about culinary school, but decided it wasn't for me (as much as I enjoy the restaurant business, I don't want to cook all day for streams of anonymous customers. I want to cook for ME damnit!).

On top of it all, I dislike the word foodie. First of all, no one seems to have the same definition of the word. Secondly, it just sounds obnoxious.

I like food. I like smelling food. I like eating food. I like cooking food. I like the feeling of peace I get when chopping vegetables for soup. I like the way flour feels when you stick your hand completely into a fresh bag. I like watching Anthony Bourdain travel around the world eating and talking about nonsense. I like Top Chef as well as Worst Cooks in America. I like to read about food on blogs. I like to read about food in books (the book that made me giddy is this one). I like to look at pictures of food. Z and I go out to restaurants on our days off together - not because we're a boring couple, but because we LOVE food (oh and we cook together on occasion as well). I like the fact that Hamburger Stroganoff brings me back to my childhood, the thought of French Onion Soup brings me immediately to a tiny condo dining room with deep red walls belonging to one of the best cooks I know, the smell of corn tortillas takes me to Guatemala, and the taste of an empanada transports me back to Chile (provided awesomely in the DC area by Julia's Empanadas).

All this leads to the question: How am I not supremely fat?

Just kidding. The real question is: How can I learn more about food (other than experimenting in my closet-sized apartment kitchen) and discover my food destiny?